Shideh is a contemporary artist in Los Angeles, California. Her practice involves photography, collage and mixed media with the intention of asking enduring questions about the nature and appreciation of beauty.  As a travel photographer Shideh has documented and made numerous photographic series in locations such as: Cuba, Italy, Estonia, and most recently Morocco.  Shideh also has an affinity for photographing and working with flowers. She creates unexpected dances of color and abstraction through a studied process of freezing and suspending floral materials and arrangements. By photographing them in close-up, her practice considers life in a dreamlike world as revealed though a microscopic lens.  Shideh’s encaustic work takes images from her floral and travel photography and combines these images with wax and oil pigment sticks. Through the materiality of encaustic and collage she seeks to push this magical process of transformation further.  The blurring and distorting qualities of brushing and pouring wax creates a sculptural and textured appearance on the photographic images which in turn allows her to create a veil of fantasy.  Through layering materials new meanings are created which now transcend the surface of the image.

Mediums:  Photography, Encaustic, mixed media
Location:  Los Angeles